No-one can answer this 3rd grade math problem

Homework can be the bane of both the parents' and the students' life. I am yet to have a child (thankfully), but one thing I am dreading is the moment they begin coming home with homework, particularly math homework. It's safe to say that math was never my strong point during my years at school, and the moment my kid asks me to help with a math question is, quite simply, a moment I dread.

I can't imagine that there is much more embarrassing as a parent than not being able to figure out your kid's homework questions. I mean you are meant to be several years older and wiser, and naturally, you should be a bit smarter than your kid and able to do the work set by their teachers.

Credit: Reddit

However, this is exactly what happened to one parent, who took to Reddit to try and get help with their kid's homework which had left them completely puzzled. Dusty Sappington posted a photo showing a section of her 8-year-old daughter Izzy's homework after she struggled to get her head around it.

Sappington circled the problem in question, which reads: “Janell had 15 marbles. She lost some of them. How many does Janell have now?” It's clear that Izzy found this question particularly difficult, with her answer simply being a question mark.

Sappington says that her daughter suffers from dyslexia and attends a private school that specializes in teaching those with learning disabilities as well as offering more traditional classes to students.

After posting the photo on Reddit, Sappington claimed that the homework came with no additional instructions, saying: “If someone can answer this correctly, my child will be done with her homework!!”

While her fellow Redditors did try to help her, they were also left pretty stumped by the question.

“I haven’t found out the answer, but hope to see her graded paper soon,” Sappington said. “To be honest, I’m unsure if it was printed in error or was a question to test her knowledge of less than and greater than, which she has touched on in the past.”

The mother said that she initially posted the question on Reddit "mainly for amusement" but it has since gone on to get 9.841 points with a 95% upvote.

“Being the mother of a third-grader and a fifth-grader, I have seen a lot of homework over the years that has our family laughing at the absurdities, scratching our heads and relying too much on Google,” she explained.

Credit: Getty

Sappington says that she hopes that the post will remind people of the importance of education and that teachers deserve to be paid more than they currently are.

“I hope this adds more fuel to the fire to better fund our educational systems.”

I mean, that question is surely impossible to answer? "Some" isn't a number so how are you meant to provide a legitimate numerical number? Math is for idiots.